Those have been my emojis of choice these last few months. Broken Heart/Face with Tear. The events of this past month have rendered me speechless- if you can believe it. I am at a loss for words with all the loss that people have been experiencing in my little world. This past month we lost my father in law. He was a sharp, smart man with a big booming laugh. About a week before the end he was still that man and then, he wasn’t. Fortunately, or Un- it was about a week between Hospice and Wake- so fast…SO fast. Kind of like a “wait …what?” situation, but our family rallied, as we do – and got through it and we comforted and leaned on each other…. many heart emojis. Just as
we were “getting through” that, my brother in law’s mom passed away- Broken Heart/Face with tear add a surprised shocked emoji!! That just happened to fall on the day we were planning on celebrating what would have been my sister in law’s 60thbirthday. As if that day isn’t heartbreaking enough. It’s a lot to process in the first paragraph, right? (Shrugging shoulder emoji)
I know that people out there reading this can relate and maybe match it –heartache to heartache. It just seems I have been posting that Broken Heart on so many Facebook posts. People losing people- people losing pets- illnesses- it’s all so sad and almost overwhelming!! So overwhelming, I had to blog about it. At the wake for my father in law, a friend of ours asked me if I had been blogging lately. I think I have mentioned before that I don’t seem to blog when things are moving smoothly in my life (thumbs up emoji.) I am a therapeutic blogger- for me and hopefully for others. It helps and it is cheaper to put pen to paper or fingers to keys than to pay an actual therapist- (money bag with wings flying away). Up until the first paragraph- things were – dare I say – going smoothly- well maybe not smoothly – but definitely - - going! Happy kids, happy pets, family fun, wedding preparations… I sometimes wonder do people like to hear about other peoples’ good fortune-
Do I? hells no!! - face palm and smiley -That is not true- I am happy for others –just don’t push it with more than two major vacations – er-kay?!?
I believe I have gotten past the point in my life where I am envious of others- I still use the eye roll emoji accompanied by a “must. be. nice”. It’s mostly when I see palm tree/beach pictures in the midst of the never-ending winter we’ve had (snowflake snowflake snowflake). But I know I may be at the other end of the eye rolls as I post a billion pictures of my grandchildren and all our family adventures. All happy things and I hope people aren’t sick of hearing about it –
Being Sicilian, we live in fear of the Malocchio – (there actually IS an emoji- it looks like the cool rock and roll hand –index and pinkie up- but it’s evil I tell ya EVIL). I have often said being Sicilian is like a part time job what with all the worrying and the grudges. My mom made sure we had little red ribbons pinned to each of our baby’s cribs to ward off the “maloch”. But wait it gets worse…you can never trust a compliment- Oh Lord no- they don’t mean it – they’re jealous (this explains volumes – I just recently learned to say thank you when complimented – instead of making a joke). A few years back – it seemed to me like my hair was falling out a bit (due to stress and age, I’m sure) but I was like THOSE BASTARDS – always with the “I wish I had hair like yours” … Malocchio bitches!!!
On the other hand, if you complimented someone – you would always have to say God Bless after- “He has such beautiful eyes- God bless ‘em”. So because of years and years of paranoia and red ribbons, you can bet I have always been a bit leery about sharing (not bragging) good news- because people are jealous by nature and if you are Sicilian by chance, you’re downright dangerous (God Bless ya) Italian flag
I guess you have to go through some sad face times to get to the happy face- dare I say hearts in eyes happy face time. I spent most of the winter using the sick mask face as I turned down many an invitation- I am all about the emoji reply. (Let me clarify that I started thinking about this blog BEFORE I watched the Emoji Movie with my grandchildren. I was all “why didn’t I think of that” quizzical thinking emoji) But please don’t let it replace precious words. Let them be enhancements!!! Sometimes after a long conversation and carefully placed wide eyed face (my personal favorite) or upside down face says it all. Please note-since I am a word girl – I wrote out the emoji descriptions and didn’t use the actual emoji (mostly because I couldn’t figure out how to) but damn it they fun. And when you have two deaths in ten days and a side of a dad in the hospital scare…fun is what you crave!
Social media connects you to so many people so it seems like you know about more hardships and good ships (?) lollypop emoji- duh. I am not an obituary reader or a member of the “guess who died club” (that is kind of my parents’ generation where wakes were social outings)- so I appreciate knowing about the sad posts and I do so love the babies and pets and the occasional food posts! By the way, eggplant doesn’t always mean parmesan and the scattered raindrops ..that mean something different too ….these damn kids with their sexting!!
So as we navigate through the sadness only to look forward to the happiness that is in our future- we will remember to cherish the family and friend time because finger snap emoji is how fast it can change…wait… there isn’t a finger snap- horrified cat with blank white eyes- head exploding- purple devil – eggs in a pan- Spanish dancer…. American flag American flag-!!!! Looks like I will have to look for a gif - just sayin’ No emojis were harmed in the writing of this blog ….
